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Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Today’s Challenge – Find A Position, Any Position, on Which Mitt Romney Was Not on Both Sides

Ok Something Easier – Find a Way to Convert Water into Gasoline

Every time Mitt Romney stakes out a position on an issue he seems to forget that there is the ability to record his thoughts and words and that because he has been a public persona for so long a lot of recording and documenting of his past positions has taken place. So when Mr. Romney takes a stand on an issue, it is very easy to go back and check and see if his position is consistent with what he has said in the past. On every single major issue, it turns out it is not.

The latest flap concerns the statements of an idiotic Democratic “strategist” who criticized Mrs. Romney for not having a job and at the same time trying to identify with women who have held employment. The Romney campaign jumped on this issue to express ‘horror’ yes horror that someone would not realize that staying at home and being a mother was just as difficult, just as rewarding and just as appropriate as entering the workplace.

Now Ezra Klein, among others has discovered that Mr. Romney does not feel this way, at least for poor mothers.

“While I was governor,” Romney said, “85 percent of the people on a form of welfare assistance in my state had no work requirement. I wanted to increase the work requirement. I said, for instance, that even if you have a child two years of age, you need to go to work. And people said, ‘Well that’s heartless,’ and I said ‘No, no, I’m willing to spend more giving daycare to allow those parents to go back to work. It’ll cost the state more providing that daycare, but I want the individuals to have the dignity of work.’”

And lest anybody be confused Mr. Klein clears things up by what Mr. Romney means

Read that again: “I want the individuals to have the dignity of work.” And by “individuals,” Romney means “mothers.”

As for the conclusion from all of this, Mr. Klein says it better than this Forum can, so we will just quote him

So what Mitt Romney was saying, in other words, was that he believes poor mothers should go out and get jobs rather than to stay home with their children. He believes that going out and getting a job gives mothers -- and everyone else -- “the dignity of work.” And so, finally, he believes that staying home and taking care of children is not “work,” and does not fulfill a “work requirement,” and does not give poor mothers “the dignity of work.” And he believes all of this strongly enough that, as governor of Massachusetts, he signed those beliefs into law.

Oh yes, and remember last week when NBC Nightly News and others had the Romney/Republican outrage as the lead story? Well now everyone can expect them to report the Romney/Republican hypocrisy as their lead story.